Chocolate Covered Shrimp Chips Are A Sick Sea Snack

We take you to a busy street crossing in Tokyo where two self-absorbed snacking salarymen are on a collision course to candy calamity... KERRRUNCH!! “Look out buddy, you got chocolate on my shrimp chips!,” shouts one. “I'm not your buddy, pal, and you got shrimp chips on my chocolate!,” replies the other.

Both pause to taste the impromptu improbable combos, and if they were you or I the result would probably be a pair of icky messes on the sidewalk. This is Japan, however, a place where chocolate covered potato chips and Strawberry Cheetos have surprisingly managed to avoid public rejection, rioting and retching. With that in mind and with a salty-sweet snack boom supposedly in full swing, there just could be a market for chocolate covered shrimp-flavored chips.

We'll find out on February 18th when this epic collaboration between Japanese confectionery powerhouses Lotte and Calbee lands on store shelves, albeit for a limited time. The main reason for producing this improbable snack in the first place is the upcoming 50th anniversary of the two component ingredients: both Ghana Milk Chocolate bars and Kappa Ebisen shrimp-flavored chips made their market debuts in 1964. Technically, that's jumping the gun by a year but who are we to complain?

Kappaebisen Ghana Chocolate Covered Shrimp Chips, as the bizarre hybrid is being called, is described by its makers as the “perfect balance of flavor, saltiness and sweetness.”

What's more, the mellow texture of Ghana's famous milk chocolate should prove to be a worthy foil to the crisp, light crispness of the Ebisen chips. The target market is the age 30 to 40 demographic who recall enjoying these snacks in their childhood days.

Priced at 148 yen (about $1.65) per stand-up pouch, Kappaebisen Ghana Chocolate Covered Shrimp Chips will be sold exclusively and for a limited time at 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan, of which there are nearly 15,000. Forget being hard to find, you might have trouble avoiding them! (via Walker Plus, PR Times, and Girls Channel)